Disney was disappointed by 21st Century Fox's film division, noting that the recently purchased division underperformed from expectations.
According toThe Wrap, Fox's films lost $170 million in the fiscal third quarter. That fact was shared by Disney's CFO, Christine McCarthy, on a quarterly call with investors this week. The loss was largely placed at the feet of X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which flopped at the domestic box office despite a budget of $200 million. As a result, Disney is reportedly stopping all films that were in development at Fox at the time of the acquisition.
“One of the biggest issues we faced in the quarter was the performance of the Fox film business,” Disney CEO Bob Iger told investors. “It was well below what it had been and well below what we thought it would be when we did the acquisition.”
Iger noted that the company was in no position to reverse Fox's already plotted course, as the company had many movies already in development.
“I know what happens when a company gets bought,” Iger said. "Typically operations and decision making comes to a halt. We avoided that when we acquired Pixar and Lucasfilm, but this was a very different position for Fox.”
However, Iger was sure that Disney could right the ship. The media behemoth that now owns Marvel, Star Wars, their own films and Hulu is hoping to incorporate Fox's vast catalog into its own streaming service and sees the movie arm coming around in the next few years.
"We're all confident that we're going to be able to turn around the fortunes of Fox live action and you'll see those results in a couple of years," he said.
It's not all bad news for Disney. The company recently announced that it plans on reimagining well-known Fox franchises like Home Alone, Night at the Museum, Cheaper by the Dozen and Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which are all expected to be available on Disney+. But based on some recent reactions from fans, the Mouse House still has its work cut out for it.
